Build Instructions

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• 1

  Getting started

  Let's suppose to build a very simple BBS that asks your name and welcomes you. The basic operation is to extend PetsciiThread class (or AsciiThread for ASCII BBS) implementing doLoop() method, such as:

  public class WelcomeBBS extends PetsciiThread {
  
      // NEVER forget default (empty) constructor
      public WelcomeBBS() {
          super(); // Recommended
      }
  
      @Override
      public void doLoop() throws Exception {
  
          // clear screen
          cls();
  
          println("This is your brand-new BBS");
          println();        print("Enter your name: ");
  
          // flush output
          flush();
  
          // clear input buffer
          resetInput();
  
          String name = readLine();
          println();
          println("Welcome, " + name + "!");
          println("Press a key to exit");
          flush();
          readKey();
      }
  }
  

• 2

  Building the server process

  Once you have written your own BBS as an extension of PetsciiThread (or AsciiThread, as per previous documentation) class, simply build the fat jar with this command:
  
  mvn clean package
  

  The build process will result in the file petscii-bbs.jar, it will be found in the target directory. So you can run it with:

  java -jar target/petscii-bbs.jar
  

• 3

  Running the BBS Server

  Running the server with no parameters, a help screen will be displayed:

  usage: target/petscii-bbs.jar   
       --bbs <bbsName:port>   Run specific BBSes (mandatory - see list below)
                              in the form <name1>:<port1> <name2>:<port2> ...
    -h,--help                 Displays help
    -s,--serviceport <arg>    TCP port used by service process, 0 for
                              no-service (default 0)
    -t,--timeout <arg>        Socket timeout in millis (default 60 minutes)
  List of available BBS:
   * ...
   * WelcomeBBS
  

  So we can rename the -jar file in bbs.jar, and the basic syntax for running our sample BBS is:

  java -jar bbs.jar --bbs WelcomeBBS:6510
  

  the port where the service will run is 6510 and the timeout is 3600000 milliseconds by default (1 hour). We can change the timeout parameter with -t switch:

  java -jar bbs.jar --bbs WelcomeBBS:8088 -t 7200000
  

  It's possible to run multiple BBSes, each one on a different port:

  java -jar bbs.jar --bbs WelcomeBBS:6510 NewsBBS:8400 SportsBBS:9100 -t 7200000
  

  (so the port will be 8088 with a timeout of 2 hours)

  It's possibile to specify a "Service Port", which makes accessible (via web browser) the inspection of JVM running BBSes:

  java -jar bbs.jar --bbs WelcomeBBS:6510 NewsBBS:8400 SportsBBS:9100 -s 8080
  

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